Shadow Shenanigans
by Emma Sparrow
Summary: After Ron ruins a potion, Snape's shadow gets separated from him and causes mahem around Hogwarts! Will Harry, Hermione and Ron be able to save the day? Find out here! Reviews would be apreciated, thanks!


**HARRY POTTER: SPELLS GONE WRONG #1**

**Shadow Shenanigans**

"So, tell me what this potion is for again." asked Ronald Weasley, who apparently hadn't been paying any attention to their class whatsoever. He sat there scratching his head and looked at Hermione Granger with a puzzled expression on his face, as usual, relying completely on her talents to get them through the task at hand.

"Oh Ronald!" she snapped whilst stirring a thick brown mixture in the cauldron, "This is a very important potion. It will cure the poisonous bite of a Higgle-lump. It is a fatal poison you know, so we must learn this just in case."

"A Higgle-lump! What the bloody hell is a Higgle-lump?!" he exclaimed.

"A Higgle-lump," continued Hermione, "well, it sort of looks like a large fly, except it has long orange fangs, and its wings have streaks of red and gold. Luckily, they are quite rare though, in actual fact, there probably isn't much chance that we will be running into any in the near future."

"So if they are rare, and we won't actually ever see one, then why do we need to learn how to make a bloody cure?" he asked moodily, slouching down lazily on the stool he was sitting on.

Hermione let out an irritated sigh.

"We just do okay, so lets get on with it!" she felt no need to get into an argument with him about this, she wanted to be able to concentrate on getting the potion made, if not to get better grades, then to give herself the satisfaction of knowing that she could do it. Extra knowledge gained, is always a good thing. She continued stirring at a steady pace.

Just then, Harry Potter joined them, sitting down next to Ron.

"Did you get those extra ingredients Harry?" Hermione asked him.

"Yeah...um...okay there are the eyes of Humdingers, a toads leg, and a bats wing." responded Harry whilst he handed her three small containers which she took from him gratefully.

She then added part of the contents from all three into the cauldron, and started to stir more vigorously as to make sure that they mixed in properly.

"Smells ghastly!" she said, almost heaving at the unpleasant odour.

"Whats the matter mud-blood, remind you of Weasley does it?!" shouted Draco Malfoy callously as he walked past their table on his way back from retrieving his own ingredients from the front of the class room.

"Shut it Malfoy!" Harry protested.

Draco double backed and got in closer to Harry.

"If you don't like what I say Potter, then maybe you should have thought things through more carefully before deciding to hang out with the likes of them!" as he said these final words, he glared first at Ron, then Hermione. She scowled at him hard-faced.

"Don't _ever_ speak about them like that again! They are better people then you will ever be Malfoy!" said Harry, standing up for his two friends. As usual, Draco's verbal attack was very much un-called for, and he wasn't going to stand for it.

"And what do you plan on doing if I _do_ speak about them like that again?" Draco questioned, leaning his face closer, pushing Harry to the limit.

Harry shot to his feet, pulled his wand out and held it to Draco's neck. It prodded into the skin, prompting a change of expression on Draco's face.

"I think you might be able to hazard a guess!" Harry threatened, "Or should I demonstrate right now?"

Draco started to shake. He didn't want to show his fright, but when a wand was held to someone like that, he knew that anything was possible. He reached into his robe, and without hesitation, produced his own wand. He held it to Harry in the same way that his wand was at him.

"What is the meaning of this?!" shouted Professor Snape, who was hurriedly walking over to break up the fight. His jet black hair bounced around his head due to his fast pace. "Potter!" he continued as he tore the two boys away from each other with both arms. "Would you mind explaining why you were about to duel with your wands?" his beady eyes fixed themselves firmly upon Harry.

"Sir," answered Harry, "he called Harmione a mud-blood!"

Hermione looked admiringly at her friend. Not only did he stick up for herself and Ron, but he was about to be almost definitely punished in some way for doing so.

Snape jerked his head around to look at Draco, and then back to Harry.

"You boys persist in showing such insolence," he dead-panned, "and for that, you have both earned yourself the pleasure of my further company in detention tomorrow night."

"But sir!" pleaded Harry.

"_Tommorow_ night Potter!" Snape repeated firmly in order to make himself clear. With that, he walked away to observe the progress that another table of students were making with their potions.

"Good one Potter!" Draco snapped before walking back to his own table.

"Thankyou Harry." said Hermione softly, her eyes were sadened from the ferocious insult from Draco.

"Yeah." added Ron, "Thanks mate. Just sorry you've got a detention now." he sighed unhappily.

"Hey guys. Its fine. You are worth all the trouble. Anytime." said Harry smiling with good spirits. This caused Ron and Hermione to smile back gratefully. Harry was truly a genuine friend and was always willing to help them, even if it meant him having to make a sacrifice of himself.

"Anyway!" Harry continued with a spring in his step as he returned to the table, "We'd better get this potion finished off before Snape comes back over." Of course, he had thought this would also take their minds off of all the unpleasantness that had just happened.

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Ten minutes later, the potion was still simmering away in the cauldron.

"Hmph!" grunted Hermione, "I don't think this is working."

"Looks alright to me!" said Ron who hadn't even bothered to look at it at all.

"Still smells though!" chuckled Harry as his head hovered over the mixture.

"It says," said Hermione, ignoring the silly comments from the boys, flicking through a spell book, "that when the potion is ready, a red mist will appear directly above it."

"Which we don't seem to have." added Harry pointing out the obvious.

"I don't know where we could have gone wrong." Hermione sighed, still studying the relevant pages in her book.

Ron, who by this time, was feeling rather fed up with the whole idea of Higgle-lumps, decided to make his own addition to the potion. While Hermione had her head buried in the book and couldn't see what he was up to, he got off his stool and stood over the cauldron, gently pushing Harry away.

"Hummmmm." he said biting down on his lip and rubbing his chin. He carefully surveyed the table, then picked up the container of Humdinger eyes, and proceeded to shovel them into the mix whilst humming to cover up the sounds of the splashes from the unsuspecting Hermione, who, luckily for him, was still engrossed in the spell book.

"What are you doing!" whispered Harry in his ear, "Shes going to go mad!"

"Its okay," he whispered back, "I don't think she put enough of these in here in the first place. I'm just making it right."

"How do _you_ know that she didn't put enough in, you havn't been paying attention to a single thing that shes been doing!!"

"Look...maybe it will make it even better then its supposed to be."

"I hope for your sake that you are right!"

_BANG!_

The noise that had so suddenly emanated from the potion rang out loudly throughout the entire class room, causing everyone to come to an abrupt standstill. They all looked over to Ron, who guiltily stood at the cauldron.

"Opps!" he said.

"Ronald!" Hermione screeched, "What on earth have you done?!" She stood up with a start, throwing her spell book onto the table with a loud thud. She pushed him out of the way quite aggressively, and took a look into the cauldron. "You've ruined it!"

"Sorry, I was just trying to help!"

"Can I not leave the three of you alone without there being a danger of complete mahem everytime!" cursed Snape as he joined them. "Leave it to me. I will dispose of this..." he looked at the cauldrons contents grimacing, "...disaster!"

Snape started to walk off with the cauldron, whilst Hermione, with her hands on her hips and tapping her foot, gave Ron a look of displeasure. Afraid to say anything else in case he made the situation even worse, he just stood there quietly, fidgeting awkwardly on the spot. The moment was made even more intolerable upon hearing roars of laughter aimed at him coming from Draco and his Slytherin friends.

Harry, who was now stood behind Ron, leaned in to whisper to him.

"Told you she'd go mad!"

"Flippin' mental more like." he muttered back huffing.

_BANG!_

Everyone turned their attention to Snape, who hadn't quite made it to the front of the room when the cauldron had yet again, made some sort of explosion, but this time, a mysterious dense green mist shot out of it like a bullet from a gun. It was as though it was alive and had a mind of its own. It danced around Snape, twisting and turning elegantly, though a might too fast, memorising the students with its bizarre actions.

"See!" said Ron nudging Hermione and pointing, "Theres a mist! It _kind_ of worked!"

"It was supposed to be a_ red_ mist, not green" she snapped shaking her head in disbelief.

Snape, it seemed, was trying to keep his cool. He whipped his wand out at the ready, and began to utter incantations at the mist in order, he hoped, to stop it in its tracks, but after a few moments, it had became quite apparent to him, that all of his efforts were in vain.

The mist, which was very much attracted to him, was not letting up without a fight. Its movements quickened in pace as it grew closer to him, its density seemed to thicken the faster it swirled.

_BANG!_

A fresh load of mist spiralled up into the air to join in. The students gasped in horror as their potion's master completely disappeared out of view behind it. Hermione shrieked, holding one hand up to her face, grabbing on to Ron's shoulder with the other. He smiled on the inside upon her touch.

"Somebody should get Dumbledore!" shouted a panicked Seamus.

Just then, the class room door flew open.

"Wha' s goin' on in 'ere then?!" bellowed a familiar friendly voice.

"Hagrid!" shouted Hermione looking around.

"'Ello 'Armione!," he quickly looked around to see the others, "'Arry! Ron! So wha' s the trouble? Was walkin' by, an I heard a ruckus, thought I'd best see if I could helps out."

"Oh Hagrid! It's terrible! Our potion went wrong, and...and...professor Snape...hes in there!" Hermione gestured over to the green mist.

"Blimey!" exclaimed Hagrid, "The professors in _there?_! This won't do at all! Best helps him I s'ppose!"

With that, Hagrid bravely and without second thought, slowly made his way forwards towards the mist and the concealed professor. But, just as he was closing in on it, _BANG!_

He was nearly throw off his feet as the explosion rang out, but was relieved to see that, for whatever reason, the mist was starting to disperse rapidly from in front of him, revealing a rather disgruntled and exhausted looking Snape, who was sat on the stone floor, legs wide apart holding his wand high in the air. His hair was drooped messily in his face.

"Professor!" shouted Hagrid approaching him, "Got us all worried there for o'minute ya did!"

Before Snape could even think about responding or reacting to the situation in any way, Hagrid proceeded to pick him up off the floor, and placed him gently into a chair behind his desk. Snape was dwarfed in comparison to the sheer size of him. He looked more like a rag-doll being set in its place at a pretend tea party rather then a Hogwarts teacher being rescued and put right.

"Anythin' else I can do for ya professor?" Hagrid asked considerately.

Snape glared up at him from the chair, looking quite stunned.

"That will be quite all thank you Hagrid." Snape managed, though almost sounding ungrateful, which fortunately didn't bother the gentle giant.

With that, Hagrid stomped happily past the students, waving to Harry, Ron and Hermione as he went. Everybody watched in awe of his height and great build as he left, whilst Draco turned his nose up looking utterly disgusted at his scruffy appearance and musty odour.

Once Hagrid had closed the door behind himself, the students turned their heads back to face the front of the class, not quite knowing what commentary Snape would have about what he had just experienced.

A few moments of silence passed, before finally, their teacher spoke.

"Class dismissed." he announced, "You may go to the common rooms. Potter, Weasley and Granger, are to stay behind."

Everybody started to gather all of their belongings and books together, and promptly made their exit without any argument or word, everybody that is, except for the summoned Harry, Ron and Hermione.

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After the last of the other students had left the room, the three friends stood quietly in a line in front of Snape's desk, awaiting their judgement with baited breath. He stared at them rather blankly, his hands out in front of his chest, fingers interlocked.

"It seems that we have a slight problem." he said suddenly.

"Sir, you must know, we all feel truly terrible about what happened to you just now. We certainly didn't mean for it to happen." Hermione said solemnly.

"We are really very sorry." added Harry.

"Look!" said Ron, "It was all of my fault, I added too much to the potion when I shouldn't have. Harry and Hermione had nothing to do with it. If you are going to be punishing anyone for this, then I take full responsibility." as he said this, he drew himself up as tall as he could, looking quite bold.

Snape pondered over this for a moment.

"Thats very commendable of you Mr Weasley I'm sure," he said, "However. The particular problem that I am mentioning, isn't that of who's fault the situation is, or indeed, how that person, or, persons, should be punished. As entertaining as I would find it to see all three of you in detention for the rest of your student careers here at Hogwarts, there is a matter more pressing."

Harry, Ron and Hermione started to look puzzled.

"Sir? I don't understand." queried Harry.

"The green mist from the potion," Snape continued, "I believe that it was a Sithorn. A Sithorn is a shadow separator." he sighed.

"A shadow separator Sir?" asked Hermione curiously.

"Yes." said Snape. "And it does just that. Separates a shadow from a human being."

"So, you've lost your shadow?" said a very confused Ron.

"Yes" was the reply from their teacher. With that, he stood up and walked around the three of them. They turned to watch him as he walked on for a few moments. He stopped halfway through the room, underneath a beam of bright sunlight that was glowing down through a high window. To their astonishment, they saw that Snape's shadow, was indeed missing.

"So...er...what now?" quizzed Harry.

"Well, you see, when a shadow is parted from its human host, it tends to develop its own, well, personality shall we say." answered Snape. "In fact. Shadows can become, rather mischievous."

"Uh oh!" groaned Ron.

"Forgive me Sir." said Hermione, "But why exactly are you telling _us_ about this? Couldn't you have conjured a spell to reverse this?"

"I couldn't do anything to stop it, because, it was the potion that _you_ created that brought life to the Sithorn, and only the potion's creators can find the way to restore the lost shadow." he continued, "therefore, it seems that I am going to need your help to correct the situation." he looked non-too amused at the prospect of leaving students to help aid him, especially these particular three students.

"Sir, how exactly are we to do that?" enquired Hermione.

"Yes how?" added Harry.

"Well," said Snape, who was growing more disheartened by the minute, "that's the tricky part. As my shadow will have its own personality, that means that it will develop its own strengths and weaknesses. You must find its greatest weakness. Only this will overpower it."

The expressions on Harry, Hermione and Ron's faces, told Snape that they were really not looking forward to doing this at all.

"Oh," he continued, "we have another little problem. I was holding my wand when my shadow left me, therefore, _it_ has a wand as well."

"But surly, a shadow can't use a _shadow wand_ Sir." stated Hermione.

"I'm afraid it can Miss Granger. Not quite as powerfully, but just enough to insure mahem ensues."

"Blimey!" said a shocked Ron.

Harry and Hermione gaped at each other dumbfounded.

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On their way back to the common room, Harry, Hermione and Ron, were busy discussing a game plan. They needed to prepare themselves for when they ran into Snape's shadow.

"Listen," Hermione said, "I'm going to go to the library and see if I can find anything on Sithorn's and shadow separation. You never know, we could get lucky. You boys keep an eye out for the shadow while I'm gone." with that, she ran down the long empty corridor, heading for the library.

"How are we really supposed to be able to pull this off?" complained Ron as they walked up the staircase towards the Gryfinndor common room.

"As Snape said, we just need to find out the shadow's weakness." was the reply from Harry.

"That could be bloody anything!"

"I know, but we have to try or Snape will be on our case for the rest of our lives."

Just then, they could see students rushing out from the common room, shrieking and panicking. Even the Fat Lady looked startled in her portrait. They pushed and shoved each other, each student to their own, clambering down the staircase. Harry and Ron were nearly ploughed down in the rush.

"Whats wrong?" shouted Harry to anyone who cared to answer.

"Theres a ghost or something in there!" yelled Neville Longbottom all flustered, "its throwing things all over the place!" after this, he carried on making his way down the staircase with the rest of the students, who congregated at the bottom and stared upwards to where they had just come from.

Harry and Ron were now alone on the stairs. They could hear crashes and bangs from within the room.

"I'm betting that's no ghost." said Harry quietly, turning to Ron.

"Do...do...you think its Snapes shadow Harry?" asked Ron, his voice quivering.

"Yes. Its got to be." with that, he pulled out his wand, and started to creep slowly up the rest of the stairs.

"Harry!" screeched Ron clutching one of his arms to stop him, "Your not going in there are you?"

"We have to Ron. We need to see what we are up against if we are to have any chance of stopping it."

"_We_ have to?! Can't we at least wait until Hermione gets back. I mean, because shes pretty tough for a girl y'know."

"It might get away before shes back. We have to go in there _now_. C'mon!"

They edged their way to the portrait hole, and stepped against the wall either side. Ron was shaking, as he got his wand out at the ready. Then, Harry carefully and slowly moved his head to look inside. He could see various objects flying around the room, including some furniture and books. It looked an awful mess.

"You ready?" he asked Ron.

"Not really!" he said nervously.

Harry carefully started to slip around into the entrance, and made his way into the room with Ron following closely and reluctantly behind.

Sure enough, they caught sight of Snape's shadow upon the far wall. It was waving its wand furiously into the air, causing items that got into its path, to whirl through the air uncontrollably. Things broke and smashed before their very eyes.

Again and again, it used the wand to cause further destruction to the room. Even a Gryfinndor flag was hovering through the air, it travelled past Harry and Ron, who just stood there gob-smacked.

Suddenly, a spell book whizzed through the air at an unmeasurable speed towards them, not able to get out of the way in time, it whacked Ron in the head.

"Aw!" he yelled at the top of his voice, whilst falling to the floor, clutching at the injury.

The shadow then noticed the boys, and made its way across the wall and towards them hurriedly.

"Harry!" Ron shouted, just as it got within arms reach.

Harry looked on in horror, as the black silhouette of their potion's master, held its wand at them, threatening its next move.

"_Fenaligro_!" shouted Hermione, bursting into the room as she pointed her wand quickly at the shadow.

A thin red light shot out from the end of her wand, and hit the wall that the shadow appeared on. Unfortunately, it darted out of the way quickly enough to avoid the spell, and moved past them and out of the portrait hole.

"'Bout time you showed up!" Ron shouted at Hermione. She ignored this for the time being, as the three friends followed the shadow out of the common room.

When they came out on the stairs again, they could no longer see it. It had disappeared completely.

"Oh no!" exclaimed Hermione, as they all stood at the top and peered around, hoping to catch a glimpse of where it might have been headed for next.

"Was that spell supposed to send Snape's shadow back?" asked Harry in regards to the incantation that she had shouted out.

"Unfortunately not." she said. "It was meant to freeze it onto the wall, it would have given us time to work things out. It was the most helpful thing that I was able to find in the library." she sighed.

"Oh great!" huffed Ron, "We're gonna be chasing after this bloody thing forever!"

"It could be anywhere in the school by now." added Harry as he sat himself down on the top step.

"Well," said Hermione, "we are just going to have to wait until we find it again, hopefully try to freeze it, then have a go at finding the weakness that will send it back to Snape. There is nothing more that we can do for now I'm afraid."

As they contemplated this, the other students made their way back up the stairs, and past them to the common room, horrified to walk into the mess that they had been left with.

"Harry, what _was_ that?" asked Seamus as he walked past.

"Snape's shadow got loose, and its going to cause quite a lot of mischief." Harry sighed, "But we are going to work out how to stop it."

Seamus, and a few others who had been listening to Harry, stood there in silence looking stunned.

"_Snape's_ _shadow_?" said Neville looking scared, "Had to be _his_, didn't it!?"

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That evening, everyone had gathered in the great hall for dinner. It was raining hard outside, and thunder could be heard, its rumbles echoing through the roof, everybody was glad to be inside, safe, warm and comfortable.

As usual, the long tables, stretching from one end of the hall to the other, were laden with delicious looking foods upon fine silver platters. The aromas of the different dishes, wafted temptingly through the air, making a few empty tummies rumble in the process.

The entire school, were sat still, awaiting to be addressed by their headmaster. Soon, Dumbledore stepped up in front of everybody, with the other teachers along their table to the back of him, and began to speak.

"Good evening to you all." he said politely, but then let out a sigh, "It has come to my attention today, that an accident occurred during one of professor Snape's lessons this afternoon. This lead to an unfortunate incident within the Gryfinndor common room soon after this. What you all need to know about this situation is, that a shadow snatcher separated professor Snape's shadow, and it is now loose around the castle."

Upon hearing this, there were gasps of shock and surprise amongst the listening students. Many of them looked at one another, wondering what this all meant was going to happen. All except for the Gryfinndor students. By now they had definitely heard all about the events of the day, especially as most of them were unlucky enough to have witnessed first hand, the shadow's behaviour in the common room. Of course, after this, they'd had the wonderfully long task of clearing up all of the mess that it so considerately left there for them.

"However," continued Dumbledore, "measures have been set in motion, that will hopefully soon, and without much of a further fuss, put an end to this, and restore professor Snape's shadow to him." as he said this, he looked towards the Gryfinndor table, and peered at Harry, Ron and Hermione over the rims of his glasses. This made them shift uncomfortably in their seats.

Finally, he took his gaze from them, and began talking again.

"You must also know, that the shadow possesses no harmful threat, though you would still be wise not to communicate with it in any way. If you think that you have spotted it, stay calm and just alert one of the teachers straight away."

"No harmful threat!" whispered Ron to Hermione and Harry, whilst inspecting a lump that had appeared on his head, which had come about after being hit by the flying spell book in the common room earlier.

"That is all for now, so enjoy the feast and the rest of the evening" Dumbledore finished. He stepped away from the front, and made his way casually out of the hall.

Suddenly a wave of chatter started amongst the students. The whole thing about Snape's shadow had certainly given them plenty to talk about. Harry, Hermione and Ron, _definitely_ had a lot to talk about on the subject.

"Well, I still havn't been able to find anything too useful in this book." Hermione sighed heavily as she removed said book from her bag, set it upon the table infront of her, and yet again, flicked through the pages searching for an answer.

Ron wasn't really listening, he was too busy shovelling a great big portion of bangers and mash onto his plate, and then began happily tucking into it like he had no cares in the world, sudenly oblivious to everything and everyone around him.

"The shadow is bound to put in another appearance soon too." said Harry, who had been constantly looking around in search of it at every chance that he'd had.

"I know Harry, and according to this," she said pointing to a passage in the book, "the longer that the shadow is separated from its human host, the more mischievous it gets."

"Oh that's just wonderful!" said Harry irritated, as he picked up his fork, and began picking, prodding and stabbing at his food.

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An hour later, everyone had long finished eating their main meals, and the platters disappeared, and then replacing those, appeared the most wonderful, tasty looking deserts. There were iced buns, ice cream, toffee tarts, cup cakes, doughnuts, and a whole array of sticky sweet treats. Ron licked his lips with joy, his eyes widened, as he grabbed a selection for his plate.

"You can't _still_ be hungry Ron!" exclaimed Hermione quite taken aback by the large amount of food that he had already consumed, even before this.

"Well I am!" he scowled at her greedily, a bit of chocolate cake stuck to his lower lip. He let out a grunt before continuing with his feast.

She shook her head with disbelief, before going back to reading about separated shadows.

It was still thundering and raining outside, and every now and then, it froced the lights to dim and flicker, threatening to go off altogether.

Harry was sat with his face in both hands thinking quietly to himself. This had been an utterly frustrating day, and he was feeling quite tired. Of course, he knew he wouldn't be able to relax until this business with the shadow had been sorted out. He sighed unhappily as he stared at the table, narrow eyed through his glasses.

Unbeknown to him, or anyone else for that matter, the shadow had appeared, and began to creep around the room un-noticed, waiting to make its move. It floated towards Harry's back, drew its wand and pointed it at one of the desert trays. It carefully levitated a cream cake upwards, then, with the flick of the wand, sent it hurtling towards Draco.

_Splat!_

Cream and strawberry jam, slid down Draco's from his blonde hair, then face, and then plopped onto the table in front of him. He was not impressed. He snarled angrily as his fellow Slytherin's started to howl with laughter at the sight. He rose to his feet and looked around, scanning for possible suspects.

"Who did this!" he yelled with fury,

Everyone in the room fell silent, and turned to look at him. The students who wern't already laughing at him, soon started.

"Stop it!" he was shouting, whilst he wiped some of the cake residue from his face, but nobody could hold it back. They were in hysterics.

Even Hermione was now looking up from her book, and enjoying the moment of hilarity.

Draco suddenly spotted that Ron had quite a selection of the deserts still on his plate. He was taking a guess, that he'd must have been the one to attack him. With this thought in mind, he reached over to a tray nearby him, picked up a doughnut, and lobbed it over at Ron's head.

"Oi! What did you do that for!" Ron yelled over to him, but before he was answered, his brothers decided to add to the situation.

"Food fight!" shouted Fred and George together, and immediately, everyone started to throw the rest of the desserts at one another.

The teachers that were still left in the hall, were franticly trying to stop them. They were unable to use magic to hault them, as pointing wands towards that many people, somebody would be easily hurt, and they just couldn't take the risk of that happening.

Snape's shadow was taking great enjoyment from adding to the chaos, and was floating around, propelling the sweets through the air as well. It was feeling rather pleased with itself for bringing on such havoc.

Poor Neville had dived for cover under a table when the fight had first broken out, but some of the other students, were clambering on top, and too close around for his liking. So, he decided to try and make a run for it. He popped his head out from underneath to have a quick look around, then he ran for his life towards the door. Unfortunately, he was in such a rush, he didn't see that there was some melted ice cream in his path. Once he'd placed a foot in it, he slid for a few metres yelling as he went, and then hit another table with a thud. He fell to the ground, bottom first in a pile of treacle puddings.

"Aww! Its not fair!" he groaned with a big huff, as he sat there very uncomfortably.

At the other end of the hall, Draco kept taking aim at Harry, Ron and Hermione, who were desperately throwing cakes back in his direction. They narrowly missed the Patel twins, and Luna, as they ran passed screaming.

Just then, Harry noticed a dark shape on the wall not too far from them.

"Look!" he yelled pointing, "Its the shadow!" Ron and Hermione could now also see the sight that they had been dreading.

"And I'll bet you it started all of this!" stated Hermione.

"But, what do we do now?" asked Ron.

Just then, the lights dimmed once more. As this happened, Hermione squinted over to see the shadow, noticing, as the lights faded, it started to act weirdly. Almost like it was in pain. This gave her an idea.

"I think I know how to stop the shadow!" she said to the other two. They looked at her stunned.

"How?" enquired a very curious Harry.

"Didn't you just see? Wern't you looking at it?" she blurted out.

Harry and Ron looked at each other with puzzled expressions.

"It doesn't like the dark! I saw it. It looked like it couldn't cope at all well. And it all makes sense. In fact, its so obvious that I don't know why I never thought of this before!"

"Thought of what?" asked Harry.

"Yeah, get to the point!" said Ron impatiently.

"Well," she continued, "shadows can only be seen in the light, so, if you take away the light..."

"The shadow disappears!" said Harry with a smile.

"As I said, this should have been obvious." she sighed at her slip-up. "We will need to go and find professor Snape too, I have a feeling that he will need to be nearby, so that when the shadow disappears, it jumps back to him. I'll do all of this with a darkness spell, it covers just the subject."

"Right!" said Harry confidently, "We just need to lore the shadow now. Hermione, go and get Snape and meet us in the corridor.

With that, Hermione ran over to Snape and began to explain their findings to him, whilst Harry and Ron started to edge their way over to where they had seen the shadow. As they went, Harry picked up a few cakes, and shoved them hastily into his robes. He had a plan, and he would need them as ammunition.

They ducked under the desserts flying overhead, and pushed past the other students who got in their way, until finally, they stood within stones throw of the shadow.

Harry reached into his robes, grabbed one of the cakes that he'd stashed there, and aimed it, throwing it as hard as he could. The shadow moved with a start as the cake hit the wall that it appeared on.

"C'mon then if you want to play games!" Harry yelled at it.

"Harry! What are you doing?!" said Ron panicked.

The shadow it seemed, could not resist Harry's offer, and proceeded to aim and fire chocolate cake at him and Ron. They dived to the floor out of the way.

"Is that the best you can do!" Harry provoked it sarcastically, as he and Ron got back onto their feet.

"Get ready to run out of the door." Harry whispered to Ron, as he removed another cake from his robes, and chucked it at the shadow. Then, making sure the shadow was following them, they ran as fast as they could towards the door, and out into the corridor.

Hermione and Snape were already waiting there ready, as the boys ran out to them. Hermione calmly lifted her wand into the air, and pointed it at the shadow.

"_Darko Surroundo_!" she shouted.

A cloak of black air engulfed the shadow violently, and it disappeared amongst its dark density.

Harry and Ron saw Hermione nod to Snape, and he dived into the blackness.

_Bang!_

The swirls of blackness dispersed, revealing Snape, who was wobbling on his feet disorientated, but unharmed.

"Er...did it work?" asked Ron, as he and Harry made their way over to Hermione.

"Well theres one way to find out." she said.

"Professor Snape. We need you to come into better light." still shaken, he didn't speak, but allowed the three friends to walk him over to the hall door. The light from inside came down on him, revealing that his shadow was on the ground. It was back at last, and under control.

All of them sighed with relief, smiling.

"Now Ronald, maybe we should keep you as far away from a cauldron as possible in the future!" Hermione chuckled.

"No argument there!" Ron laughed back.

With that, they made their way back into the hall, to see if they could assist with stopping the food fight, which they managed to do. _How_ you ask? Well, thats another story for another day!

**THE END**

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